Top 10 Tuesday : All Time Favourite Characters

This weeks theme is Top 10 All Time Favourite Characters. I found this one a bit of a challenge. It wasn’t because I couldn’t come up with 10 characters, I just feel like I keep repeating the same books or characters. Does anyone else have this problem? I wonder if there are just books I’m forgetting. lol. I wish I started goodreads when I was 9! Although I suppose in a meme about Top 10 anything, your favourites are always going to be the first ones you think of.

1. Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice) by Jane Austen: I actually thought of not including this because I felt I was being so repeatative in these memes but it would be dishonest. Elizabeth is strong, smart and witty. I would love to be as quick with the banter as she is.

2. Lula (Stephanie Plum series): I think I actually like Lula more than Stephanie. I really admire her. She wanted to change her life around so she just did it. Granted, she’s a bit lazy and a bit too quick with a gun but she makes up with that with her charm and her incredible fashion sense.

3. Calliope Helen Stephanides (Middlesex) by Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex is one of my favourite books. I’d love to reread it again to see if I still feel that way a few years later. Calliope was one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever met in literature. She was going through something I could not relate to but yet I so empathized with her. Literally caught between to selves, she struggled to define herself and I have so much admiration for her. One of the bravest characters in fiction.

4. Mrs. Havisham (Great Expectations) by Charles Dickens: She’s not a very nice character and I would never want to be her but she’s definitely left an impact on me. Anytime I’ve feel I’ve been hermited away too long, I think of Mrs. Havisham and get out of the house! One shouldn’t be covered in cobwebs no matter how much work is left in your inbox.

5. Aminata Diallo (The Book of Negroes) by Lawerence Hill: Another of my all time favourite books. While you read Aminata’s story, it’s as though she lived five lives. It’s so hard to believe that any one person could go through so much. Yet, we know they did and some still do. I admire Aminata’s strength and her ability to use her brains to protect her and get her one more day ahead.

6. Tess Durbeyfield (Tess of the D’Ubervilles) by Thomas Hardy: Another story with a heroine who faces such hardship with grit and determination. This book was one that literally made me gasp. Tess has such a difficult life yet the book fills me with optimism.

7. Arya Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George RR Martin: Arya is awesome! I love that she’s so determined to be a fighter. She says what she thinks and is fiercely loyal. I can’t wait to see where George takes Arya next.

8. Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) by L.M. Montgomery: Anne was the first literary character I ever wanted to be. Plain old unromantic Anne Shirley (her words! not mine). She was definitely herself. You could never believe that she could be anything but. Even when she’d twist an ankle or tell off the neighbour, it’s almost as though I wanted to do those things as well even though we’d both be punished. I wanted to get in trouble too just so I could be a little more like Anne. I’m including another Anne gif like last week because the Anne Shirley tumblr tag is my new favourite thing and I’m not even on Tumblr.

9. Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) by Steig Larsson: Easy to put Lisbeth on the list. She is so incredibly strong and smart. I’m very envious of her computer hacking skills as well. No matter what life throws at her, she fights back and she never gives up.

10. Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter) by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Just thinking about this book makes me depressed. Not because of how things were but because of how things can still be. Hester perseveres under society’s scorn to raise her child. I have such admiration for her struggle. Funny how being an unwed mother was still so looked down upon only a few short years ago.

I definitely think I need to read To Kill a Mockingbird again. I don’t think I’ve read it for 10 plus years at least! Must get on it. I wasn’t thinking exclusively of female characters but it just turned out that way!

I love Lula, too. She gets the best lines. And I feel like Arya is the girl I wanted to be when I was younger, but Sansa is closer to the girl I actually was. (Who am I kidding? I’m totally Ned “The Honorable Buzzkill” Stark.)

I noticed that all these characters are female (well, Calliope is raised female, at least). Will there be a favorite male character list coming soon?

Well it wasn’t meant to be all women but it just turned out that way. Most of my favourite male characters were featured on last week’s Fictional Crushes meme and I didn’t want to repeat myself. Oh Ned Stark if only you weren’t so honorable. I can’t forgive Sansa for tattling on her father to the queen. At least not by halfway through book 4.